As I ventured into Hopper's, Laura Petch, the bassist for the evening was just starting to load in her rig. I hadn't seen her since the Charlie Grant wake party at the Back Alley in Vancouver last summer. I hadn't played music with her for, geez, maybe six years? The same went for Sonny, although I remember it was 1992 when I had last played with her, in the Paulette & Power Band. I had left the band on less than amicable terms, but time heals all wounds and both of us were willing to forgive and forget.

Sonny showed up shortly with a nice, new, fancy Line 6 amp (the latest craze in guitar amp gear), several effects pedals and her own big monitor. Since Laura was going to sing along with Sonny, I needed to plug in both monitors, but only had two cables--one was bad. I quickly discovered why--a broken solder joint on the phone plug jack. Like the undaunted pro I am, I grabbed my soldering iron, heated it up, trying to keep it away from my drum heads, and then hastily made a new solder joint.

It was a little rough getting going in the first set. We were all finding each other's grooves, but by the third song or so, we were cookin' along. Laura sang some old Janis Joplin songs, which I really had fun playing--off of the Pearl album, I believe. We attempted a couple of funk rock tunes to nominal effect--"Them Changes" and "Thank You". I remembered doing those with one of the funkiest bass players in town, Randy Monroe (now with the Linda Hornbuckle Band), but Laura did a commendable job of copping the groove, not having ever played those tunes before.

By the first break, several friends of Sonny's and Laura's showed up, as well as two fellas Sonny had told could sit in with the possibility of hiring them for her band. She was particularly interested in a bass player, since she had just let her old one go this week. I acquiesced, suggesting they get up first thing second set, before the crowd showed up. So the drummer and the bass player jammed on three tunes, while I jaunted across the street to the Plaid Pantry for a Gatorade and candy bar (I was particularly hungry for some reason). When I returned, the band was charging into a rendition of "Mustang Sally," and I was glad it wasn't me drumming. "Mustang Sally" is one of those songs for me that have just been run into the ground. I've probably literally played that sucker over a thousand times. I'm done with it. Nonetheless, the drummer seemed to be having a great time playing it. I was happy for him. J.R. Sims had showed up, we exchanged greetings, and I explained what was going on with Sonny's audition.

The next two sets for me were a stroll down muscle memory lane, as Sonny was still playing the songs we did with Paulette ten years ago. Mostly Etta James songs, I remembered most of the arrangements, but my muscles had a better memory than I did, deftly going through the changes despite some befuddlement on my part. Once I got out of the way and let my body play the songs, it was like we had played the songs last week instead of ten years ago.

Laura's husband, Steve "Midnight" Anderson, dropped by during the first break with guitar and amp in hand. I had just been thinking about booking him as a guitarslinger in July, so this was a perfect opportunity to do so. He graciously accepted and then proceeded to burn the house down with Sonny--it was dueling guitarslingers. I was in heaven, man. Steve and Laura are the founders of Midnight Blue, one of the long-time mainstays of Portland blues-rock bands.

Steve sang a couple of songs, and Steve and Laura did some harmony work and guided Sonny and me through the changes of a few of their originals and covers. One of my particular favorites was the Jimmie Vaughan song, "Ba-ba Boom" off the new Strange Pleasures CD. It rocked, and was really fun to play. The song stuck in my brain for two days afterwards.

By the third set, things really gelled into a nice, tight ensemble, and there were about 30 people in the audience, most of them dancing, bumpin' and grindin'. Another successful night!

Hope to see you down at Hopper's next Tuesday night, as I rock with Jim Mesi!

Boyd